Worth
by Libek
Summary: Waiting for the heroes, Rukia reflects on how exactly she came to be in her white tower. Soft implications of Rukia/Ichigo and Rukia/Renji.


She laced her hands together, first the right over the left and then the left over the right, watching the movement of her fingers as though they belonged to someone else. They were remarkably strong, unhesitating fingers. No shaking. No sign of the way she herself was trembling inside.

No indication there, of the weak thing she had become.

It was one thing to be trapped in a false body; one thing to have lost her powers in Ichigo, and have to stand on the sidelines while he performed the duty that she had thrown away so much (too much) of her life for. That weakness was... confusing, and inexplicable, but any Shinigami in her place would have been just as helpless.

That she had sat with Orihime and her friends, in the sunlight, eating human food and laughing like she really was some stupid high school girl -- that even now she missed the warmth of that afternoon, the taste of that food -- was another kind of weakness altogether. And so much less forgivable.

She was back where she belonged, in a white robe not so different from the one she had found herself in when Ichigo first took more than she had meant to offer; far from the triviality of the human world, and the ridiculous (pretty) dresses in that girl's closet. But the air here tasted strange now, and the sash of her robe cut tight into her belly, ill-fitting as someone else's skin.

Was this really what it felt like to regret? It seemed like so long since the last time she had felt -- anything. A lifetime or two away, at the doors of the academy, where she had realized for the first time but certainly not the last that she and her only remaining friend were headed down two very different roads. That the goal they had set out to accomplish together would be reached separately, and singly, if at all.

Forty years since she had last been weak enough to wish her life -- her fate -- on someone else. Forty years since she had found herself thinking, even for an instant, _If only things were different, and I didn't have to be here._

Only she was worse now, wasn't she. The last time she had wanted a way out, death hadn't seemed so unpleasant an alternative. What kind of Shinigami feared death?

The kind, perhaps, that was content to wear pretty clothes and gossip about boys and never raise her blade again, standing instead always in the shadow of some poor human and letting him do her dirty work, watching as his family was endangered and his friends got hurt again, and again, and again. His spirit energy would have attracted the Hollows, always, but thanks to her power, he was an enemy now as well as a tasty snack, and powerful Hollows who would have stayed away, preferring other targets, he now had to attack.

No, Ichigo hadn't stolen anything from her. She was the one who had taken his life, exchanging it for hers. She had gotten her guilty little wish, hadn't she.

Was she so pathetic that she would try to escape from _this_ fate too? If they gave her the option, would she have been tempted -- even for an instant -- to blame it all on the human thief? Let him take that burden off her shoulders as well?

Renji would have encouraged her. Renji and so many others. She knew their whispers, what they expected her to feel; she was meant to hate that human for taking her power, hate her brother for failing to rescue her now. She saw it there in his face when he came to visit her, that fixed, uncomprehending stare as if he could not believe she was still there on the other side of the bars. He, her captain, the members of her squad, even the sad-eyed Yamada boy who brought her food. They all seemed to want her to blame other people for... her own failings.

A better Shinigami wouldn't have lost all her power when she meant only to give half.

A better Shinigami wouldn't have recovered so slowly even then.

A better Shinigami wouldn't have been such a horrible, shameful burden on the house that was kind enough to adopt her.

A better Shinigami wouldn't have needed that adoption to secure her place on a squad.

A better person wouldn't have cried bitter tears for hours because her best friend was happy and successful and had no need for her any longer.

She watched her fingers carefully, thumb shifting over thumb. Listening to the sound of her own breathing until it was no longer wet or ragged, until the veins stopped throbbing beneath her skin and the tremor went out of her hands again. Was she no longer even up to that pretense of strength?

Just as well, Rukia thought slowly, that the tower was sealed around her. If she was going to fall apart like this, going to start weeping like some stupid spoiled child, better that Renji didn't have to see it. He was in enough pain already for her sake -- and, selfishly, with the last remnants of her pride, she wasn't sure she could have borne it. When she was dead and gone, Rukia wanted him to remember her as she had been once; strong enough, at least in this way, to kick his ass.

There was less than half a month left until the execution. Time had gone by quickly, as it so rarely did now. She felt strange and heavy, caught up in the wake of something much larger -- as everything was, wasn't it -- than herself.

The sunlight playing over her hands was so pale and cold compared to what she had felt in the schoolyard, not so long ago. She closed her eyes against it, against everything, and permitted herself one last pitiful wish: that she might somehow find the resolve to go towards her death willingly, and be a Shinigami once more when they came for her, instead of this frail little girl.


End file.
